I have had a lot of users contact me by Private Messages or emails about what WordPress Plugins I am using here at Cartpauj.icomnow.com. I have decided to make a complete list of what Plugins I have activated here on my site:
- Akismet
- All In One SEO Pack
- Announcements and vertical scroll news
- Cartpauj PM (Private Messages)
- Cartpauj Post Hits
- Comment Notifier
- FAQ You
- Mingle
- Mingle Donation Button
- Mingle Forum
- Paypal Donations
- uCan Post
- WP-UserOnline
- XML Sitemaps
When I first setup my site and began releasing the WordPress plugins that I had written, I had no idea how popular the site would become and how quickly. Within the first few weeks I was getting around 2000 unique hits a day and the Spam comments starting piling up. After activating this plugin and entering my API key, only 2 SPAM comments have slipped through its grip.
Some folks claim that there are now better SEO plugins available but I have used this plugin a lot in the past and am very comfortable with the way it works and the features it offers. I don’t have a lot of time to devote to good SEO practices so the little time that I do get is very well spent with this plugin. It makes implementing good SEO practices easy and I plan to continue using it for a long time.
I heard about this plugin through a friend. It took a little CSS customization to look good on this site but I’m very pleased with the results. It has made it very easy to advertise new plugins, articles, even forum posts on my site.
Cartpauj PM was my very first attempt at writing a WordPress plugin from scratch. It hasn’t been downloaded as many times as I hoped but those who have used it have loved it and have sent some very kind emails and donations for it. I do have plans of writing Cartpauj PM 2.0 which will be much better now that I’ve got a little more practice.
Cartpauj Post Hits is a small plugin I wrote for my site here because I wanted to know how many times my posts were being viewed. The nice thing about this plugin is that it does NOT count Bots, Crawlers, and Administrator views as hits.
I have always wondered why more bloggers don’t implement something like this on their blogs. This plugin allows a user to subscribe to a comment stream for any blog post. It is very helpful for maintaining user retention and helps give that extra boost to keep people coming back.
Because Cartpauj.icomnow.com is heavily geared towards support I installed this plugin to help alleviate some of the most frequent and repetitive requests/questions that I get. For the most part this plugin is pretty solid, but it would be nice to have an option to see how many times each question is getting viewed.
Mingle is written by a good friend who I have worked with many times. The Mingle plugin is an excellent solution for people looking to add facebook like user management and social networking to their WordPress site(s). It is still under development with plenty more features to come in the future.
This plugin is a great way to add a PayPal Donate button to your Mingle users profile.
This plugin was taken over from an old abandoned WordPress plugin. It has been the most popular plugin of mine and also the most demanding on my time. After taking over the abandoned plugin I spent many sleepless nights and long days getting it fixed up and ready for customers who want something simple, solid, and reliable. In around 4 months it has been downloaded over 22,000 times.
Because this site is based almost solely on Free WordPress Plugins, it takes a LOT of my time to answer support requests and to continue to improve my plugins and add new features that are requested. It is very difficult to find the time and motivation to continue to do so — which is why I added this plugin. Every donation whether big or small helps tremendously to boost the spirits and remind me that there are lots of good people in the world. Big thanks to all those who have or who will donate!
uCan Post allows users to put a form on the front of their site that will allow users or guests to submit blog content without having to access the dashboard. I don’t really use it for any reason on this site other than to demo it’s capabilities for those who are thinking about downloading it.
I installed this plugin so I could see what users are on when. It doesn’t have a lot of statistical features but the few that it does offer are nice. I would certainly like to see the authors add more statistical data or charts in future releases.
This plugin is just plain awesome! XML Sitemaps does its job quickly and hassle-free. It doesn’t ask any questions, no options to configure. Just activate and you’re done. There are a lot of other sitemap plugins that have more options and better features but for those of you who are strapped for time like me, this plugin is where it’s at. I recommend this plugin in a lot of client work that I do also.
That’s it! If you want to share some other plugins that you feel are good or maybe even better than some of the one’s I listed feel free to comment below.
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I know this post may seem random, but believe it or not, cartpauj.icomnow.com (Writing Free WordPress Plugins) is not my full-time job 
. I actually Manage a small Ink and Toner business for a living and write Plugins on the side for hobby. I’m studying MIS at my local university and hope to graduate with a Masters in MIS with an emphasis on web development at which point hopefully developing online software such as WordPress Plugins will be my full-time career. In the meantime however, I thought I’d share something interesting about what I’ve learned about ink-jet cartridges over the years.